Kinzinger defends not supporting voting rights act: ‘Democrats have to quit playing politics’

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Sunday defended his decision to not support the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, saying, “Democrats have to quit playing politics.”

While appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Kinzinger was asked by host Jake Tapper why he didn’t support the bill and whether he believed there was a bipartisan effort that Republicans could get behind.

“I certainly hope there is. I think there is,” said Kinzinger.

“Look, you can call a bill the Voting Rights Act, and then left-wing Twitter goes nuts about this by the way, and they can say you voted against voting rights without even look into the details,” the Illinois Republican said.

Kinzinger argued that passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act as it is written now would  simply be a reimplementation of temporary provisions that were included in the Civil Rights Act of 1960 that required all states get federal approval for changes to election systems. The Supreme Court invalidated this part of the bill in 2013.

Kinzinger said that this type of measure would have passed in the Trump administration.

“The problem is, you know I admonish my side all the time about playing politics. The Democrats have to quit playing politics on some of this too,” said Kinzinger. “You can call it the For the People Act which was the other one and really what that is is public funding for campaigns among another whole host of things. If we actually went into this as adults with real discussions I think we can solve stuff.”